Nominate a Peer Recovery Specialist from June 1-11 for Central Virginia's First-Ever Peer Impact Awards!
What Is a Peer Recovery Specialist?
A Peer Recovery Specialist (PRS) is a trained professional who uses their own lived experience with mental health and/or substance use challenges to support others on their recovery journey. Peer Recovery Specialists provide encouragement, mentorship, advocacy, and hope by walking alongside individuals as they navigate recovery, treatment, and wellness.
According to the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS), peer support services are a vital, evidence-based resource that helps individuals build resiliency, improve wellness, and achieve sustained recovery. These services are person-centered and non-clinical, meaning peers focus on connection, shared understanding, and empowerment rather than diagnosis or therapy.
Peer Recovery Specialists may support individuals recovering from:
- Mental health challenges
- Substance use disorders
- Co-occurring mental health and substance use conditions
Because peers have “been there,” they offer a unique level of empathy, trust, and understanding that can help individuals feel seen, supported, and hopeful throughout their recovery process.
Mental Health Peers and Substance Use Peers
Peer support can take many forms depending on an individual’s lived experience and area of focus. Horizon Behavioral Health
Mental Health Peer Specialists
Mental health peers are individuals with lived experience navigating mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, trauma, or other behavioral health challenges. They help individuals develop coping strategies, build confidence, connect to community resources, and pursue recovery goals.
Substance Use Peer Specialists
Substance use peers are individuals who are in successful recovery from substance use disorders and use their lived experience to support others pursuing recovery from addiction. They often assist individuals with navigating treatment systems, maintaining recovery goals, accessing recovery resources, and building healthy support networks.
Many Peer Recovery Specialists have experience with both mental health and substance use recovery and support individuals with co-occurring challenges.
How Peer Recovery Specialists Help
Peer Recovery Specialists play an important role throughout the treatment and recovery journey. They may:
- Provide emotional support and encouragement
- Help individuals identify personal strengths and recovery goals
- Assist with navigating behavioral health and community resources
- Support recovery and wellness planning
- Encourage self-advocacy and empowerment
- Help reduce isolation and stigma
- Promote hope by demonstrating that recovery is possible
Research consistently shows that peer support can improve engagement in services, increase feelings of connection and hope, and support long-term recovery outcomes.
Peer Support in Central Virginia and Across the Nation
Peer support services continue to grow rapidly across both Virginia and the United States as behavioral health systems recognize the value of lived experience in recovery care.
In Virginia, Peer Recovery Specialists complete DBHDS-approved training and certification pathways to provide services across community services boards, behavioral health agencies, hospitals, recovery organizations, crisis services, and community-based programs.
Nationally, tens of thousands of peer support professionals work across mental health and substance use systems, helping individuals and families navigate recovery with compassion, understanding, and hope. Peer support has become an essential component of modern behavioral healthcare and recovery-oriented systems of care.
At the heart of peer support is a simple but powerful message: recovery is possible, and no one has to walk the journey alone.
Nominations Are Now Open for the Central Virginia's first-ever Peer Impact Awards!
Do you know a Peer Recovery Support Specialist who has made a meaningful impact on someone’s recovery or mental health journey? Now is the time to recognize the compassion, encouragement, and lived experience that peers bring to our communities every day.
The Peer Impact Awards presented by The News and Advance and Horizon Behavioral Health celebrate peers across organizations serving the communities of Amherst, Appomattox, Bedford, Campbell, and the City of Lynchburg who walk alongside individuals from surviving to thriving.
We invite community members, colleagues, and individuals served to submit nominations honoring peers who inspire hope, connection, and recovery.
Help us celebrate the incredible impact of peer support in our region.
Nominations are open now through June 11.
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Explore A Career As a Peer
At Horizon Behavioral Health, more than 25 Peer Recovery Specialists serve across a variety of programs and services, bringing lived experience, compassion, and hope to individuals throughout their treatment and recovery journey. Our peers support individuals navigating mental health challenges, substance use recovery, and co-occurring conditions by helping build trust, connection, and empowerment every step of the way. Whether assisting someone in crisis, supporting recovery goals, or helping individuals reconnect with community resources, Horizon’s peers play a vital role in creating a recovery-oriented system of care where individuals feel understood, supported, and encouraged toward lasting wellness.
